AbeBooks book blog

Rare book leaf thief gets two years

Two years in the big house seems rather light for this rare book vandalizer? It probably will be one of those white collar prisons filled with dodgy accountants, executives from Enron and politicians who drink and drive. I imagine Farhad Hakimzadeh, an academic and publisher, won’t be given a prison library card.

When investigators examined 842 books he had looked at, they found 143 had been defaced. Police discovered the altered editions, along with several loose pages, in his library. He claimed he innocently bought the stolen pages at the Portobello Road antiques market.